Cultural assets around us may be classified according to materials into metallic, stone, wood, paper, fiber cultural assets, etc. Such cultural assets may be variously damaged with time according to the material properties and preservation conditions of the cultural assets. Most of cultural assets having their original forms are also being weathered by rain, wind, sunlight, etc, and damaged by careless managers and visitors. Particularly, cultural assets made of organic materials such as papers, fibers, and woods are further damaged by biological attacks of insects and microorganisms. Therefore, such organic cultural assets should be preserved more carefully as compared with inorganic cultural assets.
In the case where cultural assets are damaged by biological attacks, particularly, insects, materials of the cultural assets are eaten. Since such damage is significant although it may occur sporadically, insect control is a common and important method of preserving indoor and outdoor cultural assets.
Insects harmful to wood, paper, and fiber cultural assets include: isoptera, coleoptera, thysanura, blattaria, hymenoptera, and psocoptera. Particularly, isoptera and coleoptera are more harmful.
Termites (e.g., Reticulitermes speratus) are social insects living in colonies and having social classes starting from queen. Termites settle in one place for thirty years or more and do harm to human. According to worldwide reports, termites do harm to timber, wooden houses, wooden telephone poles, wooden bridges, railroad ties, and even crops. In Korea, national treasures such as a national treasure of Haein Temple in Kyeongsangnam-do have been damaged by termites.
In addition to damage by termites, wooden cultural assets are damaged by wood-rot fungi. This causes structural and authentic problems (Kyuhyuk Kim et al. 1999). Wood-rot fungi include white-rot fungi, brown-rot fungi, and mold fungi, which cause tissues of wood to dry, rot, crack, degenerate into sponge, downy hair, or powder, and discolor (Savluchinske-Feio et al. 2007).
In general, cultural assets can be protected from insects as follows. First, cultural assets should be periodically maintained. Secondly, if it is considered that a cultural asset is damaged by insects, the physiological and ecological characteristics and nature of the insects should be investigated to identity the insects. Thirdly, the insects should be controlled by selecting and applying a proper method that does not harm to the quality of the cultural asset according to the kind of the insects.
Therefore, it is necessary to establish a rearing method for termites which have not been artificially reared, so as to effectively investigate the physiological and ecological characteristics and natures of harm insects.
Thus, the inventors have been tried to find a method of rearing wild termites indoor for observing the physiological and ecological characteristics and nature of the termites. As a result, the inventors have invented an efficient method of rearing termites. The method includes the steps of: placing an old tree in which termites live into a rearing box; and keeping the rearing box dark at a temperature of 20° C. to 25° C. and a humidity of 70% to 90%.